14 DAY TRIAL // Tomorrow is Friday the 13th and I have to help you protect yourselves from the evil things that may happen, and I am not talking about Jason Vorhees coming back from Hell again. Malware sounds evil enough for me, and since we're into computers and not horror movies here, let's check a program that can monitor your computer and prevent various attacks.
The name of the program I am talking about is AbuseShield, its latest version is 2.0 and what I have here is its shareware version that will expire after 30 days of use. Registering this program costs 14.99$, and the download and installation were easy, the setup package having exactly 4MB in size. These being said, let's move on to the interface and features, as usual, shall we?
AbuseShield is not a work of art, but that doesn't matter at all. This program's interface is well organized, easy to customize and use. Although this program is not a firewall, it acts just like one, helping you block unwanted applications from running, so let's move on and find out more about this, because if you set options right, you won't get to see the main window or the pop-ups unless you really want to.
At the end of the installation process, you will face the Setup Wizard. This wizard is very easy to follow, because there's only one thing to do - register your installed software to allow it to run. This makes AbuseShield an ideal choice for fresh Windows installs, but an older operating system is also fine.
You can choose between two available configuration types here - Typical, recommended if you don't want to waste your time, and Custom, that lets you choose manually which programs to allow.
The program has three running modes - On, Off and Record. When the shield is on, processes not allowed to run are blocked automatically. In the next situation, all processes will be allowed to execute, but file system activity will be monitored for all of them. At last, in Record mode, all processes are allowed to run, but disallowed ones are placed in the "Recorded" list.
The method used by the program to filter processes is based on rules, and by inserting a program file into one or more rules, you tell AbuseShield what to do when that program is run. AbuseShield may look complicated at first sight, but I can tell you it became easy to use pretty fast, and if you run into any trouble, you can get help from the comprehensive documentation built into the program.
These being said, I'll move on to the conclusions and leave you with this trustworthy guardian.
The Good
AbuseShield is an interesting solution for preventing unwanted programs and scripts to run, easy to use, and coming for a good price.
The Bad
I would like to get even more protection than what is offered at this time, and some basic firewall features would be the next thing to have here. A friendlier user interface could also help beginners get comfortable with AbuseShield.
The Truth
AbuseShield is not exactly what I expected, but I must say it was a pleasure to use such a program. Together with a firewall, this program can do a great job in protecting your computer from malware and even viruses, in some cases. I am not saying that AbuseShield can replace your antivirus, but since safety is never enough, add it in your programs' list. You have a month to try this program, so why not start right now?
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
